Nanostructured Metallic Glass in a Highly Upgraded Energy State Contributing to Efficient Catalytic Performance.

Metallic glasses (MGs), with high density of low coordination sites and high Gibbs free energy state, are novel promising and competitive candidates in the family of electrochemical catalysts. However, it remains a grand challenge to modify the properties of MGs by control of the disordered atomic structure. Recently, nanostructured metallic glasses (NGs), consisting of amorphous nanometer-sized grains connected by amorphous interfaces, have been reported to exhibit tunable properties compared to the MGs with identical chemical composition.

Space-confined and substrate-directed synthesis of transition-metal dichalcogenide nanostructures with tunable dimensionality.

Atomically thin transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) nanostructures are predicted to exhibit novel physical properties that make them attractive candidates for the fabrication of electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, TMDCs tend to grow in the form of two-dimensional nanoplates (NPs) rather than one-dimensional nanoribbons (NRs) due to their native layered structure. Herein, we have developed a space-confined and substrate-directed chemical vapor deposition strategy for the controllable synthesis of WS, WSe, MoSe, MoS, WSSe NPs and NRs.